1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to radiation spectrometers generally and, more particularly, but not by way of limitation, to a novel automatic gain adjust utility for such spectrometers.
2. Background Art
Changes in temperature and extended usage of radiation spectrometers may cause shifts in gain and/or zero settings.
Rather than having to recalibrate and/or manually adjust a datasource after excessive amplifier gain shift, it would be useful to be able to execute a software-driven automatic gain adjustment that would rematch the datasource to the existing energy calibration. With software-controlled electronics, an automated software utility to adjust amplifier gain and zero would be possible and beneficial. Benefits include further automation and consistency in setting up gamma spectroscopy systems. Having uniform spectra (common energy calibration) facilitates comparisons, consistency of analysis, and following of trends. Furthermore, the utility could be used periodically for checking, adjusting and tracking gain during extended campaigns of system usage. Such a utility could improve situations with less gain stability, such as industrial settings or scintillation detectors. A gain evaluation portion of the utility can be used to evaluate the quality of peak/energy identification and as a tool for future automated quality assurance (QA) procedures.
Accordingly, it is a principal object of the present invention to provide a a software-driven automatic gain adjustment that rematches a data source to existing energy calibrations.
A further object of the invention is to provide such an automatic gain adjustment that provides consistency and ease in setting up spectroscopy systems.
An additional object of the invention is to provide such an automatic gain adjustment that facilitates comparisons, consistency of analysis, and following of trends.
It is another object of the invention to provide such an automatic gain adjustment that can be used periodically for checking, adjusting, and tracking gain during extended campaigns of system usage.
It is yet a further object of the invention to provide such an automatic gain adjustment that improves situations with less gain stability, such as industrial settings or scintillation detectors
It is yet an additional object of the invention to provide such an automatic gain adjustment that can be used to evaluate the quality of peak/energy identification and as a tool for future automated QA procedures.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide such an automatic gain adjustment that is easily implemented.
Other objects of the present invention, as well as particular features, elements, and advantages thereof, will be elucidated in, or be apparent from, the following description and the accompanying drawing figures.